simon says...
The world’s best Simon Rowlands casts his eye over the World Best Racehorse Rankings and compares the assessments to his own calculations
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HE IDEA THAT RATINGS ARE “just a matter of opinion”, as gets trotted out regularly by those who have never bothered to rate horses themselves, has a limited amount of mileage to it. The reality is that handicappers have triedand-tested approaches to assigning figures to performances, and to individual horses, and the scope for disagreement is usually only a couple of pounds either way, not a couple of stones as some would have you imagine. As a result, any critique of the Longinesbacked World’s Best Racehorse Rankings – the annual assessment of the leading horses around the globe by various countries’ official handicappers – may come across as a modern-day equivalent of gauging how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The latest WBRRs were unveiled towards the end of January, as is usual now behind closed doors, and contained few surprises. Doubtless, some will argue that Ghaiyyath
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The top-rated horse on the WBRRs for 2020 is the Dubawi colt Ghaiyyath, seen here winning the Eclipse Stakes (G1) at Sandown
